Towards the end of Monday’s Good Morning America, ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl got the opportunity to plug his new tell-all book about covering President Trump to co-anchor George Stephanopoulos. Though the interview was very short, the two journalists managed to fit in as much Trump-bashing as they could. Karl bemoaned to Stephanopoulos that the president was the same man now as he was in 2016, and his “mental illness” was being spun as a good leadership quality, by his own staff.
The interview began with Stephanopoulos touting his colleague’s “fascinating” inside look at what it’s like covering Donald Trump, as Karl explains he has done as a reporter for twenty five years now. After marveling at the near-empty White House press briefings, due to COVID-19, Stephanopoulos dived into trashing Trump's response to the virus.
He asked Karl if the president’s character has been “changed” by the coronavirus crisis, or if he’s “still very much the man you first encountered at Trump Tower." Of course, this was just an opportunity to trash Trump as heartless and self-centered. Karl also faulted the president for hoping to reopen the country by Easter, then yielding to Dr. Fauci’s recommendation to extend the lockdown:
JON KARL: I'm amazed watching this play out how much -- seeing every day the way he's handled this crisis is explained in my book. The very same Donald Trump that we see who is obsessed with the ratings, with the viewers -- just yesterday he was talking about how many people are tuning in to his press conference, comparing it to The Bachelor, the way he takes his own counsel, he goes and he does things by gut. I've seen this happen over and over again. He may ask for advice, he may seek eventually advice of experts, but he'll go and he'll do something like he did just the other day and say we're going to essentially re-open the country by Easter and then have to flip around once he talks to the experts and say no, actually, we're going to be locked down at least until the end of April...
STEPHANOPOULOS: All while suggesting it's not a turnaround at all!
Stephanopoulos then asked Karl to tell one of the more “stunning” stories in his book about former Acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney suggesting Trump was a mad genius. Karl hyped how “overwhelmed” White House reporters were because of unprecedented the Trump presidency was by alleged incidents like these, where Trump’s own staff was spinning his “mental illness” as a good thing:
This was one of the incredible stories. So you know some people think of Donald Trump as a genius. Some people think of him as crazy, but what I learned is that Mick Mulvaney when he became acting chief of staff essentially saw him as both. This book argues that the best leaders in history have been mentally ill, and this is what he was having the senior White House staff meet the first time he got together with them as acting chief of staff.
After Karl had responded to this question the camera panned back onto Stephanopoulos, who was grinning broadly, seemingly thrilled by the opportunity to trash Trump as crazy.
The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd previewed Karl’s book on March 7. After this ancedote, Karl argued the White House staff was directed to unflinchingly follow the mad genius:
As Karl writes: “The new acting chief of staff seemed to be saying President Trump was mentally ill — and that this was a good thing. The corollary to that theory: Don’t try to control the man in the Oval Office. What you think is madness is actually genius.”
It’s not clear who Karl’s source was for this scandalous claim, as he didn’t say in this GMA interview.
See the relevant portions in the transcript, below:
ABC’s Good Morning America
3/30/20
STEPHANOPOULOS: As you watch the president deal with a crisis that he’s never dealt with before, any sense at all that it’s changed him, or is he still very much the man you first encountered at Trump Tower so long ago?
JON KARL: I'm amazed watching this play out how much -- seeing every day the way he's handled this crisis is explained in my book. The very same Donald Trump that we see who is obsessed with the ratings, with the viewers -- just yesterday he was talking about how many people are tuning in to his press conference, comparing it to The Bachelor, the way he takes his own counsel, he goes and he does things by gut. I've seen this happen over and over again. He may ask for advice, he may seek eventually advice of experts, but he'll go and he'll do something like he did just the other day and say we're going to essentially re-open the country by Easter and then have to flip around once he talks to the experts and say no, actually, we're going to be locked down at least until the end of April. In fact, the peak in terms of number of deaths the president said yesterday would be two weeks from now. He may or may not be right about that but two weeks from yesterday when he said that is actually Easter Sunday.
STEPHANOPOULOS: All while suggesting it's not a turnaround at all. I have to ask you about at least one story in the book that my eyes popped out when I read it. It's a story about how when Mick Mulvaney came in as the new acting chief of staff, he advised the whole senior white house staff to camp David for a weekend retreat and he makes a startling suggestion. He asks them all to read a book with this title and I want to make sure I'm going to get it right:‘A first rate madness, uncovering the links between leadership and mental illness.’
KARL: George, I wrote this book because I had seen so much history unfold. I had seen a story I think unlike any other White House reporter in history. I had been up close and personal with Trump and I wanted to write about all the things that I couldn't talk about as it was all happening because we were just so overwhelmed, but as I went back and started reporting on this book and talking to people, I learned about what was happening behind the scenes. This was one of the incredible stories. So you know some people think of Donald Trump as a genius. Some people think of him as crazy, but what I learned is that Mick Mulvaney when he became acting chief of staff essentially saw him as both. This book argues that the best leaders in history have been mentally ill, and this is what he was having the senior white house staff meet the first time he got together with them as acting chief of staff.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Like I said, it’s just stunning. Jon, it’s a fantastic book, congratulations.
